Among the many time saving devices in modern society are appliances that make performing household tasks easy. Many appliances perform operations that are initiated by a human operator, then run unaided until completion of the specific task. For example, the clothes washer, clothes dryer, and dishwasher are examples of such appliances. Even an oven (conventional or microwave) is an appliance that performs the task of heating food for a certain period of time.
It is often useful for the human operator to be notified when the appliance has completed its task. For example, when the clothes washer has finished washing the clothes, the human typically transfers the clothes from the clothes washer appliance to the clothes dryer appliance. There are many other scenarios whereby the human desires to be notified of the completion of the appliance's task.
It is common for an appliance to produce an audible sound when the task is complete. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,973, Sandidge describes an integrated signal system for coordinating various signaling devices within a home environment. Unfortunately, the human may not hear or receive the signal. For example, the human may be outside and not hear the buzzer. An audible signal at a fixed location is inadequate to ensure that the human is notified when the appliance's task is complete. Another deficiency of an appliance having an audible signal is that the tone produced may not be able to be distinguished from that of other devices. For example, in a laundromat setting, all clothes washer appliances produce similar signals, therefore the human has difficulty knowing if her clothes washer appliance has finished its cycle, or if the signal was coming from another clothes washer appliance.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,410,292, Le Van Suu describes a method for communicating information or commands within a dwelling or property. However, a human employing this method would still be unaware that a specific appliance completed its task.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,424,940, Ousborne describes a computer controller for a laundromat to centralize money collection and control the activation of each appliance in the laundromat. Ousborne does not describe the problem of notifying the human that the appliance has completed its task.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,105, Jenkins and Rhodes describe a home appliance, such as a laundry washing machine or refrigerator including a buzzer designed to sound an alarm or provide an audible indication of a certain condition. The appliance may transmit information (such as diagnostic or fault codes and appliance usage information) to a remote service center without the need for a physical connection to a telephone line. The buzzer may be controlled to produce audible tones in a predetermined format that can be transmitted from the appliance, through the air and down a telephone line through a telephone handset to the service center. The signal is recorded at the service center and the data extracted. The data is then analyzed to obtain the fault and/or usage information. The information described by Jenkins and Rhodes is used for machine diagnostics in order to notify a technician of a machine fault. Their appliance does not notify a human that the appliance has completed its task.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,121,593 and 6,275,922 both describe appliances that are controlled over the internet. Neither of these patents describes the problem of notifying the human that the appliance has completed its task.
Therefore, heretofore known appliances suffer from the limitation that the human operator is not notified when an appliance has completed its task in a manner that is not restricted to the audible range of the appliance itself.